CARGO
OPERATIONS
Keeping
Africa cool
ACUNIS has just put the final touches to a showcase cargo
hub in Ethiopia, notes the Editor.
The biggest cargo terminal
in Africa has actually
been running to capacity
since the beginning of the
year. ACUNIS, a co-operation
between Unitechnik and
AMOVA, both of which are
headquartered in Germany,
planned and implemented
the new air cargo terminal in
Addis Ababa for governmentowned
Ethiopian Airlines. The
air cargo facility covers 38,000
square metres, an area as large
as five soccer pitches, and is
divided into a refrigeration
and a dry storage zone. Some
600,000 tonnes of fresh food
and dry goods can be transshipped
at the installation.
This cargo terminal is
considered pioneering, both
in regard to throughput and
logistics processes, as well as
its security standards.
Geographical constraints
To attract investors and
the business world to the
country Ethiopia, as a classic
landlocked area without a port
Indeed, with the new facility, Ethiopian Airlines has increased its
previous throughput capacity from 350,000 tonnes per year to
nearly 1m tonnes.
“In the long term, in making this investment, we want to
establish our capital not only as a freight hub for the African
continent, but also as an international cargo hub. This puts us
in direct competition with hubs like Dubai,” explains Tewolde
GebreMariam, CEO of Ethiopian Airlines.
From landside to airside - and vice versa
Export and import orders, as well as transit processes, are
handled through the new facility in which the terminal serves
as a trans-shipment point. The freight centre is divided into
a spacious refrigeration zone (of 17,000 square metres), with
temperature ranges from 2 to 10ºC, and a non-refrigerated dry
zone (of some 19,000 square metres). The computer-controlled
installation has capacity for 600,000 tonnes of freight per
year. At the hearts of the terminal are found two automatic
warehouses for air cargo containers. Containers and ULDs of
various sizes can be combined in the 20 foot compartments, so
that up to 1,000, ten foot ULDs can be stored simultaneously.
Four fully automatic, elevating transfer vehicles are used to
handle the heavy aluminium containers that can weigh up to
6.8 tonnes. Demands on the process chain are especially high to
ensure optimal throughput. Once a cargo aircraft lands, it must
be unloaded as rapidly as possible and loaded with new freight:
maintaining the cold chain is thus a top priority.
Designed for import and export
The actual work at the cargo terminal commences once a cargo
aircraft lands and the ULDs have been stored in the automatic
of its own, had to guarantee
that local goods could be
exported and trans-shipped
both rapidly and efficiently.
The government and national
carrier (Ethiopian Airlines)
laid the foundation with
the new air cargo terminal.
In doing so, they were
also making a sustainable
investment in Ethiopia’s
general infrastructure. Dry
goods and fresh products
like coffee, meat, flowers,
fruits and vegetables are now
shipped around the world
from Addis Ababa. In the
transportation of perishables,
professional storage, seamless
documentation and rapid
trans-shipment play a decisive
role: they are also important
prerequisites for trading with
industrialised nations. The
new air cargo facility expands
the capacity of the existing
airfreight terminal, which
was planned and built by the
ACUNIS Group, and creates
the conditions for the efficient
trans-shipment of fresh goods.
32 June 2019 www.airlogisticsinternational.com
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